KEY TERMS!
METAPHOR & SIMILE
All writers have a need to capture and hold on to their reader's attention. This means engaging the reader by focusing their thinking on what will captivate and entertain their imagination but which is also what the writer wants them to think about as they read.

Figurative language is an effective way of achieving this. It uses such language 'devices' such as metaphor, simile and personification. These often work by creating a mental image ('imagery') or a feeling, often one that is arresting and vivid. This acts to engage the reader's mind.

In a metaphor a thing is described as if it were something entirely different from itself - as in, 'He's a fool!'; in a simile the thing being described is compared using words such as 'like' or 'as' - as in, 'He's acting like a fool!'

Personification is the name given to one kind of metaphor. This is when a non-living thing is described as if it had attributes of a living thing - as in, 'the wind breathed past them as they walked.' Personification allows an emotional response to the thing being described because a human (or living) factor is used in the description.

When a text relies on a series of metaphors taken from a similar area, such as when a football match is described using metaphors from the field of war or battle (e.g. 'attack', 'defending', 'enemy', 'shot'), the words are said to belong to a particular semantic field - in this case the semantic field of war (semantics is the study of meaning).